Lowrance Elite-5

[Petey_racer]

Hey all. I have an beautiful new Elite-5 in my boat.
What are my options as to Micro-SD cards and maps/charts?

I stay in one area mainly and really do not see the need for a Navionics HotMaps card for the whole Northeast.

One issue I have with the pre-loaded maps is that my river area does not show contour lines, which all the documentation I read said it did. Now I find that not all areas will have contour lines, just random depth numbers. This is not at all good enough for me. In fact this is one of the main reasons I replaced my perfectly good fish finder with a combo unit. My handheld GPS andiPhone were not cutting it.

I have the Navionics app in my iPhone and it is excellent. It's just not very user friendly while driving a boat.
Do I have to drop the $120 for the Navionics card to get the same thing for my Elite-5? or is there a place to download charts for specific areas?

 

[dingbat]

Re: Lowrance Elite-5

The base map sets in the Lowarnce units is pretty useless. When comparing prices with the other units count on spending $120 or more in maps.

 

[Petey_racer]

Re: Lowrance Elite-5

That's a shame since I already have the "US Recreational Lakes" CD for my Garmin handheld. I wish I could extract some of the maps from that and load them onto a card.

I really liked the Lowrance unit for it's features/screen. Also the price was pretty good for what it offered. I guess the money for a card will be well spent. :redface:

What are your feelings on the Navionics Hot Maps? I am seeing that there are not too many options in a micro-SD card.
http://www.navionics.com/LakeFeatures_HM.asp

 

[borakid]

Re: Lowrance Elite-5

I got the HotMaps 2010 East for mine and absolutely love it so far. I think the premium and platinum were a waste of $$$...